If you want to get married, go out hunting, have a day on the lake fishing, or need your school transcript, you can expect to pay more soon. Beginning April 1, various fees, including vital event certificates, will increase — with birth, marriage and death certificates all rising by $10 to $35.

“You have seen a more significant increase than previous years because there has been a massive review of fees and charges,” said Finance Minister Kevin Doherty. “Some of (the fees) have not been touched in 25 to 30 years.”

While the fee increases are relatively small individually, they will generate nearly $10 million in revenue for the province.

“I don’t want to minimize these fees, whatever the fees apply to,” he said. “It is of importance to people but we need to keep this in context. Costs go up.”

It is estimated that vital event certificate fee increases will generate $785,000 for the province. The largest additional revenue will come from a penalty on audit findings, $4.5 million, for mineral and oil and gas producers. In 2016, 30 oil and gas companies were found under audit to owe additional money, totally $45 million.

“The other taxes in the province, such as provincial sales tax, tobacco taxes, that kind of thing, all have a 10-per-cent penalty,” said Denise Haas, chief financial officer for the Ministry of the Economy. “In one sense, we are just bringing the penalty on resource audits to be in line with the other tax statutes in the province.”

Currently, Manitoba also has a 10-per-cent penalty and Alberta has a sliding scale for penalties, with a minimum of 10 per cent.

“It is really making us consistent with other statutes in other jurisdictions,” Haas said, adding that it should not have a negative impact on business. “Will it impact individual companies? Only if they are not correctly submitting their taxes or royalties.”

Applicants to the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program, specifically those in occupations of high demand, will now have to pay a $300 non-refundable application fee. Despite the new fee, the provincial government does not feel it will deter immigrants from coming to Canada for work.

“These are skilled individuals with occupations that are needed in Saskatchewan,” said Anne McRorie, acting executive director of the immigration services branch. “We don’t think the $300 will be a disincentive because it is in line with other application fees charged by other provinces and territories.”

Consultations were also completed by the government to determine the right amount to charge.

“We heard from different stakeholders who felt it would be good to charge a fee so that we could recover program costs and make changes to make it a faster process,” said McRorie.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) believes that the fee increase can be beneficial, but only if it gets immigrants into jobs faster.

“We hope that it will speed up the process but time will tell,” said Marilyn Braun-Pollon, CFIB vice-president of prairies and agribusiness. “Workers are very much needed, even in a slower economy. We still have 25 per cent of business owners that cite shortage of skilled labour as an operating challenge.”

Without speeding up the process, the fee increase will only hurt businesses, says Braun-Pollon.

“If it does not speed up processing times, then it is just another increase in the cost of doing business.”

Hunting fees will see a jump this year, with hunting and trapping licences increasing by $10 and fishing licences by eight dollars. Hunting fees, which have not changed in 20 years, range between $20 and $30 depending on the animal hunted. Annual fishing licences are $29.44. These increases will generate $3 million in additional revenue for the province.

Ed Bergen, president of the Saskatchewan Bowhunters Association, doesn’t see the increase in hunting fees having a negative impact on hunters.

“As a bowhunter, I spend hundreds of dollars on fuel throughout the summer,” Bergen said. “The $10 increase is pretty insignificant in the big picture.”

There will also be a new $50 wolf hunting licence, and bison will be added to the existing voluntary-payment fine of $1,000 for unlawfully hunting big game.

“I don’t think a lot of people will be buying wolf licences in the first place. I never bought a wolf licence but I have looked at them on occasion,” Bergen said. “From my perspective with the bison fine, that could be $10,000 and anyone shooting a bison now isn’t doing it legally. The higher the fine the better in my opinion.”

“The way we managed that was we had wolf hunting opportunities as pilot projects in certain zones along the forest fringe,” Lees said, adding that with bison herds declining it was decided to add them into the voluntary-fine payment program. “We wanted to make sure the fine for hunting bison would be the same for any big game animal. If you shoot a moose out of season, or shoot a bison, the fines are the same.”

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